How to plan a year of annual leave: 2027 worked example

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Annual leave is easier to use well when the whole year is on one page before the first request goes in. This article takes the 2027 calendar, works out how many days are left to book once bank holidays are counted, and sets out what an employer can say about when you take them. Use it with the holiday entitlement calculator, which gives you the starting figure.

Start with your number

Almost all workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year, which GOV.UK says is limited to 28 days. Someone who works a five-day week gets 28 days, and someone who works six days a week still gets 28. Part-time staff get the same 5.6 weeks pro rata, so a four-day week works out at 22.4 days. GOV.UK's own example is a three-day week, which gives 16.8 days (3 x 5.6), and the holiday entitlement calculator does the sum for your own pattern.

The next question is whether bank holidays are inside that number or on top of it. GOV.UK says bank or public holidays do not have to be given as paid leave, and that an employer can choose to include them as part of statutory annual leave. Your contract is the answer. The calculator on this site has a bank holidays field, and it needs the same answer.

What 2027 looks like in England and Wales

GOV.UK lists eight bank holidays in England and Wales in 2027:

• Friday 1 January, New Year's Day
• Friday 26 March, Good Friday
• Monday 29 March, Easter Monday
• Monday 3 May, early May bank holiday
• Monday 31 May, spring bank holiday
• Monday 30 August, summer bank holiday
• Monday 27 December, Christmas Day (substitute day)
• Tuesday 28 December, Boxing Day (substitute day)

Christmas Day falls on a Saturday in 2027 and Boxing Day on a Sunday, which is why the Monday and Tuesday after are the substitute days. All eight land on weekdays, so all eight are real days off for someone who works Monday to Friday.

Scotland has nine dates on the GOV.UK list, including 4 January as the substitute for 2 January, 2 August as the summer bank holiday and 30 November for St Andrew's Day, and has no Easter Monday. Northern Ireland has its own set, with St Patrick's Day on Wednesday 17 March, Easter Monday and the Battle of the Boyne on Monday 12 July. The days vary, so use the list for your own nation.

A worked example

Take someone in England on a five-day week with a contract that includes bank holidays in the 28 days. The sum is 28 less 8, which leaves 20 days to book. If the contract adds bank holidays on top, there are 28 days to book and the eight are extra.

Here is one way to spend 20 days:

• Easter: 4 days
• A summer holiday: 10 days
• Christmas: 3 days
• Three single days held back for appointments, school events and other things that arrive without warning

That is 20. It is only an example. The point is the order: the large fixed blocks go in first, then the days you cannot predict come out of what remains, so that the year is not spent down in March and left empty in November.

Fix the dates before you count

GOV.UK says the employer should tell staff the statutory leave year dates when they start. If the contract does not set a leave year, it starts on the first day of a new job, if the job started after 1 October 1998. The leave year is not always January to December, so check it on your contract or ask HR before you plan on a calendar-year basis. If your leave year ends part-way through 2027, the days you plan for the later months belong to the next leave year. The carrying over article explains what can move across.

A wall planner is useful here, because the leave year, the school terms and the bank holidays can all be seen at once. A Ad 2027 wall planner with the whole year visible lets you mark blocks of days and see where they fall. A pack of Ad coloured planner stickers lets you keep the confirmed days and the provisional ones apart.

What your employer can say about dates

GOV.UK's page on booking time off sets out the rules on notice and on dates:

• A worker generally needs to give notice of at least twice as long as the leave they want to take, plus 1 day. One day's leave needs 3 days' notice.
• An employer refusing or cancelling leave must give as much notice as the amount of leave requested, plus 1 day.
• If the contract sets different notice periods, those apply.
• An employer can refuse leave at a particular time, but cannot refuse to let workers take the leave at all.
• An employer can restrict when leave is taken, such as during busy periods, or require staff to take leave, such as over Christmas. The employer must tell the worker before the notice period begins.

Two things follow. The first is that a busy-period restriction or a Christmas closure comes out of your 20 days, so find out about both before you plan the rest. The second is that a refusal is about the date, so a second request for a different week is the normal next step.

Where several people want the same week, the sensible order is to ask early. A shared Ad magnetic whiteboard calendar in a household or a small team makes clashes visible before they turn into a conflict, and it can sit on a fridge or a wall.

A routine that works

1. Confirm the leave year dates and whether bank holidays are inside the 28 days.
2. Take off the bank holidays if they are inside, and any closure your employer has told you about.
3. Block the periods you cannot move, such as school holidays and fixed events.
4. Book the large block, and keep a reserve of a few single days.
5. Review the planner each quarter and adjust.

Adding what you have already taken, and what is booked but not yet taken, to the calculator gives the days left at any point in the year. The long weekends from bank holidays in 2027 article shows how to make a small number of days stretch further.

A Ad week-to-view diary is the alternative for anyone who prefers to keep dates with the rest of the week's appointments.